Lund v. Henderson

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-2161
JOSEPH LUND,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
DANIEL HENDERSON; JOHN WALCEK; THOMAS JOYCE, in his capacity as
Chief of Wareham Police Department; and TOWN OF WAREHAM, MA,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Nathaniel M. Gorton, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Stahl, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Richard K. Latimer, for Appellant.
Jeremy Silverfine, with whom Deidre Brennan Regan and
Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP, were on brief, for
Appellees.
November 25, 2015
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. Joseph Lund claims that a
Wareham police officer arrested him without probable cause and
with excessive force while trying to disperse an unruly crowd on
August 22, 2008. Lund also claims that the police chief and the
Town of Wareham ("the Town"), as the officer's superior and
employer, respectively, were liable because they had known of, or
recklessly disregarded, prior false arrests and use of excessive
force by the arresting officer and other officers in the police
department.
Prior to trial, Lund took the position that the jury
needed to hear evidence that, if believed, would establish that
one of the defendant officers, and others in the Town's police
department, had acted improperly on other occasions in making
arrests and using excessive force. The district court decided
that such evidence of prior alleged bad acts should not be heard
by the jury adjudicating the claims against the two officers, but
might well be admissible in adjudicating Lund's claim against the
chief and the Town. The district court therefore bifurcated the
trial, requiring Lund to try first his claims against the
individual officers. A properly-instructed jury ultimately
rejected those claims, and the district court thereupon dismissed
the claims against the Town, rejecting Lund's efforts, post-trial,
to add a new, previously-unpleaded claim. For the following
reasons, we now affirm.
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I. Background
On August 22, 2008, Wareham police officers John Walcek
and Daniel Henderson separately responded to a disturbance in
Wareham, Massachusetts. Lund was not involved in the original
incident giving rise to the disturbance, but attracted Henderson's
attention when he began arguing with another individual at the
scene. Lund claims that Henderson arrested him without cause, and
used excessive force in pushing him into a police vehicle.
Henderson and Walcek claimed in their reports and at trial that it
was Walcek who actually arrested Lund, with cause and without
excessive force, for disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.
The day after his arrest, Lund went to the hospital
complaining of wrist pain. Doctors detected "two small well-
corticated densities," which were consistent with an old injury.
According to Lund, a physician named Gilson later diagnosed a
shoulder injury that was the result of being "pushed into [a] car"
and having his "arms twisted behind him." This statement is taken
from Lund's "History of [his] Present Illness," which is based on
information Lund told Dr. Gilson, rather than Dr. Gilson's own
medical opinion or diagnosis. Dr. Gilson explicitly declined to
give an opinion regarding the cause of Lund's injuries and stated
that his symptoms may be related to degenerative disc disease
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detected in his cervical spine.1 Dr. Gilson noted that although
new injuries can exacerbate symptoms of degenerative disc disease,
establishing a causal link between an injury and the symptoms is
difficult.
Lund thereafter sued Officers Henderson and Walcek,
alleging false arrest and false imprisonment; assault and battery;
intentional infliction of emotional distress; violation of 42
U.S.C. § 1983; violation of civil rights under Massachusetts
General Law, chapter 12, § 11I; malicious prosecution; and abuse
of process. Lund's complaint also set forth two causes of action
against the police chief and the Town: negligent supervision and
violation of civil rights.
In the lead up to trial, Lund made clear his intention
to offer evidence that, in the ten years prior to Lund's arrest,
there were four occasions when citizens alleged false arrest or
use of excessive force by Henderson. None of these prior
allegations resulted in any disciplinary action against Henderson.
At defendants' request, the district court ordered that none of
this evidence, or any other evidence of alleged wrongdoing by
Wareham officials on occasions other than Lund's arrest, would be
admissible against the two individual officers. The district court
1 At trial, Lund also acknowledged that he had suffered previous
back and neck injuries in a 1986 car accident.
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also bifurcated trial of the claims against the two officers from
trial of the claims against the Town and its police chief.
At the conclusion of the trial against the officers, the
jury returned a verdict for the officers, concluding that neither
Henderson nor Walcek had arrested Lund without probable cause,
neither had used excessive force while arresting Lund, and neither
had "abused process by causing a criminal charge of disorderly
conduct and disturbing the peace to be brought against [Lund]
following his arrest." The Town thereupon moved for judgment
dismissing the claims against it and its police chief. Lund, in
response, conceded that the adverse verdict on the claims against
the two officers, unless reversed, defeated his claims against the
chief and the Town as they were then pled.2 At the same time, he
moved for leave to amend his complaint under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 15(b)(2) to add a new "employee negligence" count against
the Town under Massachusetts General Law, chapter 258, "to conform
2 In Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), the
Supreme Court stated that municipalities cannot "be held liable
[under 42 U.S.C. § 1983] unless action pursuant to official
municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort."
Id. at 691. Therefore, because the jury found that the officers
had not violated Lund's rights, the municipality itself could not
be liable on the civil rights claim. See City of L.A. v. Heller,
475 U.S. 796, 799 (1986) (per curiam). Similarly, the claim that
the chief and Town were vicariously liable for torts by the
officers due to negligent supervision was necessarily defeated by
the jury's finding of no tortious conduct.
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to the evidence and to appropriately determine the merits of the
action as to the Town of Wareham's liability."
The district court entered judgment for all defendants,
while also denying Lund's motion for leave to amend his complaint
because (1) Lund provided "no good reason for his three-year delay
in seeking leave to amend;" (2) his theory of negligence was barred
by Massachusetts General Law, chapter 258, § 10; and (3) there was
insufficient evidence of negligence at trial. The district court
also denied Lund's subsequent motion for a new trial. This appeal
ensued.
II. Analysis
Trial management rulings of the type at issue on this
appeal are "peculiarly within the discretion of the trial court."
Gonzalez-Marin v. Equitable Life Assurance Soc'y of U.S., 845 F.2d
1140, 1145 (1st Cir. 1988) (motion for separate trials). We are
unlikely to question the trial court's discretion in making such
rulings if they are based on "any adequate reason apparent from
the record." Resolution Tr. Corp. v. Gold, 30 F.3d 251, 253 (1st
Cir. 1994) (motion for leave to amend); see also United States v.
Montilla-Rivera, 171 F.3d 37, 40 (1st Cir. 1999) (motion for new
trial); Freeman v. Package Mach. Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1340 (1st
Cir. 1988) (district court's judgment regarding the probative
value and unfair effect of evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence
403).
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A. Exclusion and Bifurcation
We begin first with the exclusion in the trial against
Henderson of prior complaints against him. It is difficult to see
how such evidence would have been admissible at all. Certainly it
could not have been used to support an inference that because a
defendant falsely arrested or hit four other persons in the prior
ten years, he likely falsely arrested or used excessive force on
the occasion at issue in this case. See Fed. R. Evid. 404(a),
(b)(1). Lund, therefore, attempts to argue that such evidence
would have been probative of Henderson's "motive, opportunity,
intent, knowledge and the lack of any mistake in committing the
acts complained of," and of the disputed issue of the identity of
the arresting officer. How this is so, Lund does not explain,
other than by implying that the evidence showed that Henderson
possessed motive, opportunity, and intent on prior occasions, and
thus acted similarly here. This type of reasoning, though, is
precisely what Rule 404 precludes.
Lund also seems to argue (though it is not clear)
something like the following: Henderson had a motive to lie because
there were already prior complaints against him, while the
department's policy of covering up his wrongdoing made it plausible
that Walcek lied to cover up Henderson's alleged impropriety here.
This seems to be a stretch, and as for Walcek, it seems to suffer
from the defect of arguing that Walcek on this occasion behaved as
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he did because others on other occasions behaved in an analogous
manner.
In any event, even if we assume that the evidence might
have had some permissible relevance, it also clearly would have
posed a threat of unfair prejudice, thereby triggering the
balancing test of Federal Rule of Evidence 403. "[T]he district
court has wide discretion in steadying the Rule 403 seesaw."
Onujiogu v. United States, 817 F.2d 3, 6 (1st Cir. 1987). More
importantly, admitting this evidence would have turned this trial
into a series of mini-trials as Henderson contested each of the
prior complaints. Rule 403 provides the district court with the
discretion to exclude relevant evidence for just these sorts of
reasons. See Martínez v. Cui, 608 F.3d 54, 61 (1st Cir. 2010)
(excluding testimony that would require a "minitrial"); United
States v. Gilbert, 229 F.3d 15, 24 (1st Cir. 2000) (excluding
evidence in part because it would lead to a "mini-trial" with "the
potential for confusion of the issues and for unfair prejudice").
We review the exercise of such discretion only for its abuse, a
"difficult standard[]" for any appellant to meet. United States
v. Rodríguez-Soler, 773 F.3d 289, 294 (1st Cir. 2014). This case
does not present an "extraordinarily compelling circumstance[]"
that would lead us to reverse a district court's judgment about
the probative value and unfair effect of evidence. Freeman, 865
F.2d at 1340.
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Finally, we reject what appears to be Lund's tit-for-
tat argument. Lund's alleged damages included emotional harm,
evidence of which was provided by a psychiatrist Lund called to
testify. That testimony inevitably covered Lund's pre-existing
mental illness and behavior, all of which perhaps could have led
jurors to question his credibility. Therefore, he reasons, the
district court should have allowed him to offer evidence of prior
bad acts by Henderson so that the jury might have reservations
about Henderson as well.
The most obvious flaw in this argument is that there is
no rule that requires a trial judge to admit evidence of dubious
relevance in order to offset possible prejudice caused by clearly
relevant evidence on an entirely unrelated point. And the evidence
of Lund's prior psychiatric condition was directly relevant to his
claimed damages. Moreover, Lund presents on appeal no challenge
to the admission of that evidence, nor does he argue that trial of
liability and damages should have been bifurcated.
Given our conclusion that the district court did not
abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of other allegations
against Henderson, Lund's remaining challenges to the district
court's trial rulings fall like dominoes. Excluding evidence in
the trial against the two officers of complaints against officers
other than Henderson and Walcek was, a fortiori, well within the
trial court's discretion. And the decision to hold for a second
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phase the claims against the Town, in which such evidence might be
admissible, was a classic exercise of the trial court's management
discretion, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(b), especially where there was
the possibility that the resolution of the first phase would moot
the need for the second phase, Wilson v. Town of Mendon, 294 F.3d
1, 7 (1st Cir. 2002) (discussing how bifurcating trials is common
when litigation of one issue may eliminate the need to try another
issue). Lund is unable to cite to a case in which we have
overturned a district court's grant or denial of a Rule 42 motion
to consolidate or bifurcate trials. See, e.g., Gonzalez-Marin,
845 F.2d at 1145 (noting the appellant's "fail[ure] to cite a
single case in which an appellate court has reversed a decision
for failure to bifurcate" and its own inability "to find any").
The record provides no cause to deviate from that pattern.
B. Motion for a New Trial
Lund moved for a new trial under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 59. We have already disposed of all grounds upon which
this motion was based save one: Lund's claim that the verdict was
"against the weight" of "uncontradicted and competent medical
evidence" provided by Dr. Gilson.3
3 While Lund's failure to move for judgment under Rule 50
precludes him from seeking our de novo review of the sufficiency
of the evidence, Unitherm Food Sys., Inc. v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc.,
546 U.S. 394, 407 (2006), it does not prevent us from reviewing
for an abuse of discretion the ruling on Lund's timely made Rule 59
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"A party seeking to overturn a jury verdict faces an
uphill battle." Marcano Rivera v. Turabo Med. Ctr. P'ship, 415
F.3d 162, 167 (1st Cir. 2005). The officers' testimony provided
the jury with ample support for the verdict. And Dr. Gilson's
actual medical testimony, as we have described it above, certainly
provided no compelling reason to reject the officers' testimony.
Specifically, Dr. Gilson declined to give an opinion about the
cause of Lund's injuries, which was complicated by Lund's
degenerative disc disease and prior injuries. Given the evidence
before the jury, the fact that causation and evidence of excessive
force were weak at best, and under the highly deferential standard
of review we apply, we cannot say the jury's verdict was against
the weight of the evidence. Rather, the evidence amounted to what
was at best for Lund a swearing contest, and the jury's resolution
was not in his favor. Therefore the court did not abuse its
discretion in denying Lund's motion for a new trial.
C. Lund's Motion for Leave to Amend His Complaint
Lastly, the district court did not abuse its discretion
in denying Lund's motion for leave to add an "employee negligence"
claim under Massachusetts General Law, chapter 258 against the
Town and its police chief in the wake of the verdict in favor of
the individual police officers. Lund filed his initial complaint
motion for a new trial. Velazquez v. Figueroa-Gomez, 996 F.2d
425, 427 (1st Cir. 1993).
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on August 8, 2011, and did not move for leave to amend until three
years later on August 9, 2014. We have frequently upheld denials
of motions for leave to amend for undue delay based on far shorter
periods of time. See, e.g., Calderón-Serra v. Wilmington Tr. Co.,
715 F.3d 14, 19–20 (1st Cir. 2013) (just over an eleven month
delay); Villanueva v. United States, 662 F.3d 124, 127 (1st Cir.
2011) (per curiam) (four month delay); Kay v. N.H. Democratic
Party, 821 F.2d 31, 34–35 (1st Cir. 1987) (per curiam) (three month
delay). "Appreciable delay alone, in the absence of good reason
for it, is enough to justify denying a motion for leave to amend."
Calderón-Serra, 715 F.3d at 20.
Lund tries to justify his delay by claiming that his
motion for leave to amend is being brought under Rule 15(b)(2) to
"conform to evidence at trial," and thus he could not have filed
the motion prior to the end of the trial, "never mind three years
earlier." We doubt that this motion for leave to amend even gets
into the Rule 15(b)(2) batter's box. Lund seeks to avoid the facts
as found by the jury, not add a count that those findings support.
In any event, Lund fails to satisfy the rule's requirement that
the parties somehow tried this new claim by express or implied
consent. There was certainly no express consent, nor is there any
indication of implied consent, which can occur when a claim is
"actually [] introduced outside the complaint . . . and then
treated by the opposing party as having been pleaded, either
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through [the party's] effective engagement of the claim or through
his silent acquiescence. . . . [or when] a party acquiesces in the
introduction of evidence which is relevant only to that issue."
Rodriguez v. Doral Mortg. Corp., 57 F.3d 1168, 1172 (1st Cir. 1995)
(internal citations and quotation marks omitted) (quoting DCPB,
Inc. v. City of Lebanon, 957 F.2d 913, 917 (1st Cir. 1992)). Lund
is simply trying to plead a claim that, if valid, could have been
pleaded years earlier. It was well within the district court's
discretion to deny his motion for leave to amend.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, the district court did
not abuse its discretion in making any of the decisions that are
before us on appeal. Finding no reason to disturb the decisions
below, we affirm.
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